


Unforgotten

by yarroway



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Childhood, Dysfunctional Family, Family Secrets, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-16 11:51:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3487238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yarroway/pseuds/yarroway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A pre-series look at John, Blythe and Greg House.  This is one way it might have happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unforgotten

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: House, M.D. belongs to David Shore, Universal Television, Heel and Toe Productions, and a lot of other people who are not me. I'm not making any money from this.
> 
> Thanks: as always, to srsly_yes :)
> 
> Concrit: always welcome

When he got off duty, John liked to come home and relax in his recliner for a while. He liked to smell dinner cooking and listen to his son play with his toy cars or plink at the piano--for a six-year-old the boy was actually pretty good. However on this day, this particular day, he couldn’t do any of that. Instead he had to drag his tired, aching feet over to the school to meet with his boy’s teacher.

Again.

John headed into the principal's office to hear the latest mischief his son had gotten into. He was used to complaints about Greg's level of energy, but from his perspective, Greg disrupting the classroom was the teacher's problem. If she couldn't keep the boy’s mind engaged, then that was a reflection on her ineptitude and not a child's self-control. Unfortunately, it was worse than high-spirited play this time. The principal threatened to expel Greg if his behavior didn't improve.

If Greg got expelled John would have to put in for a transfer, and that could be a career-killer. They’d only just gotten here. Moving now would look like he couldn't cut the work. It would delay his next promotion. Moving would upset Blythe, too. They had friends here, she had family nearby, and he had promised her at least a few years on this base.

His boy was going to make a liar of him.

The first thing John did when he got home was to take off his painful new shoes. He limped into the living room. The scent of roasting chicken and potatoes wafted in; he felt about thirty extra pounds lift off his back when he inhaled. He settled into his chair. His wife came in and gave him a kiss. She set an ice-cold glass of root beer on the side table, and put the paper beside it.

"How was it, dear?"

He shook his head. "He and Eddie Schrader blew spitballs during the Pledge of Allegiance. In science Mrs. Ogilvy gave the kids ten cutouts each for centipede legs. He told her that all centipedes have at least 30 legs, and called her an idiot. At recess he pulled up a girl's skirt to see her bottom, and then he made fun of her because she had frogs on her underwear. Apparently she was so upset she refused to return to class and they had to call her mother to come and get her."

Blythe sighed sadly. "Will they--"

"Dad! Look at me! Look at MEEEEE!" Greg shrieked, racing into the room with a towel tied around his neck like a cape. Greg hurled himself like a bony little cannonball into John’s lap. Without meaning to, he managed to plant a knee in John’s stomach and an elbow in his shoulder.

"Ow! You little monkey," he said, and tickled Greg. Who shrieked in delight and flailed, knocking over the mug of root beer and soaking the paper.

Blythe's mouth tightened. "Clean that up, dear."

Greg leapt off John's lap right onto Duke, their arthritic old German shepherd dog. Duke whimpered.

"Greg," Blythe chided. "Be gentle with Duke."

She was too late. Greg had zigzagged into the kitchen, zapping imaginary bad guys with his imaginary gun. Duke looked up sorrowfully. John petted him while Greg draped three dishtowels over the sodden mess on the end table. Greg paused just long enough to give Duke a kiss on his nose. Duke licked Greg’s face as he did, and there was a momentary meeting of dog tongue and little boy mouth that made John queasy, but Greg beamed at getting a kiss from Duke and John let it go. Then Greg ran outside, screeching at the top of his lungs. John gave Duke a final pat as Blythe cleaned up the mess. She had to throw the paper away.

John decided to put off talking to Greg about what he’d done at school until after dinner. He needed a rest, and his boy could use the time to burn off some energy. Lately Greg seemed nothing more than a whirlwind of destruction. Blythe said he was just going through a growth spurt, and the phase would be over soon. John hoped so.

Half an hour passed while Greg yelled and ran with Bill Parson's kids outside. When dinner was ready John went in to wash up. He came out to find Blythe standing in the doorway talking with Ettie Halpern, the Colonel's shrewish wife. Blythe looked sympathetic, and Ettie looked murderous. John felt his own anger stir at Ettie for interrupting their dinner with her complaints. He gritted his teeth and went over to smile at her.

"Ettie," he said, joining them. "How are you?"

"Greg poured two jars of molasses into Ettie's birdbath," Blythe said. "I'm so very sorry, Ettie. We'll send Greg over to clean up right after dinner."

John apologized as well, and closed the door behind her. His head was aching. Judging by the tight look on her face, Blythe's was too. She went into the kitchen to get the milk, and John went into the dining room in time to see Greg slide two rolls across the carpet.

"What are you doing with your food?"

"I'm testing which one goes faster, the rolls with butter or the ones without. It doesn't make a difference in the air, but on the carpet the butter really helps them slide!"

Blythe came in as John was scolding Greg for making a mess and wasting food. He watched as she got down onto her hands and knees to scrub the butter out of the carpet.

Greg stood there quietly like a good boy listening to John's lecture. At least his son had learned to do that. John had been like Greg at this age, restless and energetic, undisciplined. He'd earned many a session with his mother’s rolling pin and many a cold night outdoors, but he’d straightened up eventually and so would Greg.

John was more attentive to Greg than his own father had ever been to him. He'd already spent more time playing ball and shooting bb guns with Greg than he'd spent with Dad his whole childhood. He’d sworn that he wouldn’t be an absent parent no matter how busy he got, and he’d kept that promise. Greg would never have reason to think John didn’t care how he turned out.

Being attentive didn’t mean lacking discipline though. "You can sit down and eat now. Straight after dinner you need to go to Mrs. Halpern's and clean her bird bath."

Greg sat and began to eat. It didn't stop him from talking back. "Mrs. Halpern is a mean, smelly old lady, and her birdbath is ugly as a dog’s behind.”

That was Greg’s favorite new phrase. He’d heard it at school, and anything he didn’t like had been ugly as a dog’s behind ever since.

Greg’s volume increased. “That bird bath is nothing but a breeding ground for mosquitoes, I hate it, and I'm _not going_!"

"Greg," Blythe said, "it’s not that bad. Calm down and let me explain. Mrs. Halpern is the Colonel's wife, which means your father and I have to be nice to her, which means you have to be nice to her.”

"But it’s not my fault! I didn't mess it up, that was Mark and Joey Parsons," Greg whined through a mouthful of peas.

"It was you," Blythe said in a sing-song voice. She always knew when Greg was lying, but she didn’t like to be harsh with the boy about it.

Greg mumbled something angry-sounding under his breath.

Blythe's face and neck flushed. She was getting upset. "Gregory House, you answer me."

"It's not fair!" Greg wailed. "I didn't do it! You never believe me, and it's not fair!"

"I can tell when you're lying," Blythe reminded him.

"You're the liar!"

Blythe burst into tears.

John slammed his hand down on the table. "That's enough! Don't you speak that way to your mother.” He was good and mad now. His entire day was spent working hard for his family and country, his entire evening was spent dealing with Gregory's misbehavior, and now his wife was crying. "All your mother wants is for us to eat our dinner in peace. You think I'm going to let you disrupt that? You're done with your meal. Apologize to your mother and then go straight over to Mrs. Halpern's. Don't you come back until the job is done, and done right."

“It wasn’t me!”

“Your mother says it was. She’s my wife, and I believe her.”

“But Dad!”

I don’t care who did it,” John yelled. “You were there, weren’t you? You knew it was wrong, didn’t you? Now you are going to fix it.”

Greg grabbed some food from his plate and shoved it into his mouth, glaring. He mumbled an angry apology to his mother. Then he sauntered out of the room.

Blythe was still crying. John felt so helpless when she cried. Sad, too, because she’d been such a sweet, happy girl when he married her. But pregnancy had been very hard on her, so much so that the baby had come early, and Blythe had never entirely recovered. She was usually better at handling Greg, but being called a liar always upset her.

John got down on the floor beside Blythe and held her. She cried a little more, and then apologized for crying. He felt his heart twist at her words.

"I'm sorry for making a fuss," she sniffed into his shoulder. "Sometimes I just can't stand it. I know I must be doing something wrong but I don't know what else to do. I have Greg in every sport, I give him jobs to keep him busy, and he still can't behave. I'm at my wits' end!"

"You coddle the boy," he told her. No, it wasn’t fair to blame her. She did her best; she was simply overwhelmed. It was time for John to step in. "Greg needs a firm hand." So had he as a child and his mother had given him one. Mom had always said that it hurt her more than it had John when she whipped him. John had never, until this moment, believed her. But he’d turned out all right in the end, and Greg would too. Blythe was so softhearted that she wouldn’t like what John intended to do, though, and that would be a problem. He had to think of a way to be a better parent to his son without upsetting his wife.

"This isn’t your fault, honey. Listen, do you want to spend tonight at your sister's? A break would do you good, and I know how you two love to get together."

Blythe hugged him. “Thank you, John, a visit with Sara is just what I need.”

John swore to himself that by the time she got back, he’d have taught Greg a lesson the boy wouldn’t soon forget.


End file.
